This is an infor­ma­tive feature on my favorite hot sauce, Sriracha (which is appar­ently everyone else’s favorite hot sauce, too). Earlier today I put together a pretty basic sausage/peppers/onions grinder and garnished it with some quick Japanese-style pickles and a squirt of Sriracha. I pronounced it “good”.

Just got back from Los Angeles and Balti­more, where I expe­ri­enced life as a touring musician for the past week. The Big Gig with the LA Phil­har­monic went splen­didly; I wish I could post a record­ing of Nightjarup here because John and the Green Umbrella crew made it sound so good, but alas, the unions (or at least their lawyers) would demand my head. Not only were the musi­cians consum­mate profes­sion­als, as I had expected, but they really cared about making Payton’s and my music sound like real music. When I asked percus­sion­ist James Babor if he could try a differ­ent ratchet sound for the opening, there was imme­di­ately a multi­plic­ity of differ­ent ratchets seem­ingly conjured from midair, every­thing from Toy to Indus­trial.

John, Payton and I did a little Q&A with Helane Anderson, an artistic admin­is­tra­tor at the LA Phil, which you can listen to here:

There was also a bunch of press about the event: a preview article in the LA Times, and a review from Mark Swed (“strangely Darwin­ian” as my friend Andrew points out).

LA is truly the city of great hole-in-the-wall Asian food. Each day we feasted on Bánh Mì, fatty pork ramen, Shanghai-style soup dumplings… all things sadly unavail­able in New Haven, and even a bit obscure in New York. Inspired, I am right now letting a fresh batch of Nước Mắm infuse on the kitchen counter (which is in turn infusing the whole apart­ment).

The morning of the show I made our friend Annie’s family drive us out to Santa Monica, to make a pilgrim­age to the Eames House. It’s more modest in scale and construc­tion than photos in glossy art books convey, and is exactly how Charles and Ray left it, complete with the charm­ingly grody old appli­ances and corrod­ing steel paneling. I was surprised at how close to the Pacific Coast Highway the whole thing is (a thor­ough­fare which, at that point, kind of repre­sents the worst of Southern Cali­for­nia). Nonethe­less, the Eames estate is one of the pleas­an­test places I have ever been. Even though it is unequiv­o­cally one big piece of “high art” (there’s a jarringly monu­men­tal “national historic landmark” plaque in the studio) there is not a trace of snobbery or preten­sion— it feels more like the nest of two divinely-inspired magpies.

To cap the week, I was supposed to share a concert with fellow composer-pianist Tudor Dominik at Strath­more down in Bethesda, MD. Only, about two weeks before the show, Dom injured his hand (skate­board­ing? that was the rumor) and couldn’t play, doctor’s orders. So I filled out my program with a little Rzewski and Ives, in addition to the Marshall, Andres, and Steve Gorbos (who was in atten­dance with his entourage!). The venue was a nice contrast from the huge, sleek Disney Hall— a large 19th-century living room of a converted mansion, which couldn’t have held more than 100 seats. I actually prefer playing in such intimate spaces; strangely, I’m able to concen­trate better, even though the front row is nearly sitting in my lap. The lovely producer of the series, Georgina, greeted me how, hence­forth, everyone should greet me post-concert— with a bottle of water in one hand, and a glass of booze in the other.

Hannah Collins, one of my frequentest and most loyal of collab­o­ra­tors, asked me to wright her a piano-less cello piece about a month ago. So I went and wrote her a piece with Hammond organ. Ha! Sure showed her. Thanks to prodi­gious acquirer of outdated musical equip­ment Jack Vees, I got to play a real live Hammond B3 last week rather than a MIDI imita­tion. The piece is called Fast Flows the River and here is what it sounds like (You can hear the noise of the motor making the enormous speakers slowly rotate):

So I am now in my final week of school, ever. On Friday I’m flying to Los Angeles for the Big Concert, then to Baltimore/Washington, and finally back to New Have to graduate (round two). I’ve decided to leave New Haven behind and move to New York city, along with my new Master of Music degree and six years’ accu­mu­lated furnish­ings.

I was wonder­ing a few days ago why I’m not feeling any regret, or prema­ture nostal­gia, as I go about various final­i­ties— concerts, classes, pruning my favorite flow­er­ing shrubs— the answer, I think, is that being in grad school has, somewhat unex­pect­edly, provided a pretty smooth tran­si­tion from student to Real Person. I’m not really sure what I expected going in, but this seems like the best possible result. I wonder how I’ll feel about the previous senti­ment this time next year, after what’s sure to be a healthy dose of New York struggle.